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29 March 2024

Give a pen to the 'common' man and venom will flow

Published

I am wryly amused – and somewhat disappointed - whenever people do not show the courage of their convictions.

In my line of work I have to deal with sources who wish to be ‘confidential’, officials who would prefer to remain ‘anonymous’ and experts who will speak only ‘off-the-record’. That is the everyday bread and butter of any journalist worth his salt, eh?

But what trips me up every time is the cloak of anonymity assumed by the honest, everyday hardworking people when they wish to publicly express an opinion. All appeals for correct contact details go unheeded.

Common examples are letters to the editor. People use fake initials [HZ, RA, H], provide false phone numbers, obviously incorrect email ids [such as zzzz@zmail.com], creative nom de plumes [Respect, Rationalist, Sheik Yaboutie], non-creative pseudonyms [Anonymous, Anon] – in short every little trick to hide behind.

Maybe it is just stage fright when reticent people propel themselves into the public limelight however briefly, maybe it is the big-brother complex even when commenting on innocuous topics, or maybe they just fear being laughed at.

Whatever it is, public shyness is a distinct departure from the normal way regular people behave in everyday life situations and communications.

Another peculiarity  that I have observed over what seems like a lifetime in the profession of reporting and editing, is the apparent aggressiveness – even hate – that is displayed by the, I suppose, normal, good-natured people - again a contrast to everyday behaviour.

If you give a pen to your man-on-the-street, venom will flow out of it, it seems.

These two opposites of human nature are amply displayed in the Emirates 24|7 Comments section.

Abnormal: Two people commenting on stories such as the one about the sale of adult toys or about the girl who stripped down to her bikini in a mall in Dubai, can go violently at each other in the anonymity of the Internet.

Accusations fly, turning into personal attacks ranging from charges of insufficient grey cells to racism and even worse.

Language, many times, is intemperate and our moderator has a tough job of keeping the string of the debate up to acceptable levels without sacrificing too much the raw emotion in some of the comments. 

 Normal: However, I am sure that if the same persons who attack each other in the comments section, were to meet face- to-face, the conversation on the same subject would be markedly less heated, and perhaps, even polite.

Whatever the quirks, a review of readers’ comments is an eye-opener. It is a fascinating, sometimes lurid, tale with logic, reason, serious and academic battling with the insane, off-the-mark, strange, humorous and frivolous; the pious, well-meaning, fraternal and genuinely-trying-to-help vying for space with sarcasm, venom, aggression.
 

Not content with words  readers make their points more interesting  with a generous sprinkling  of exclamations, multiple question marks, dashes, quotes, multiple dots etc.

Fortunately, our comments section does not provide for italics, changing of font size, underlining or bold type.

It seems very few people use correct English – perhaps that is just the sign of our times when omg, ppl r so net savy dat de rite nu lingo, lol, or whatever.

Hey, the generation gap used to be about a lack of communication between parent and child – nowadays we talk, but unintelligibly.

I used to be a language purist, but I don’t seem to have much choice. At work I have the readers and at home, 3 kidz hoo spk a difrn’t langage.